Robohand (http://robohand.net/) is an open source project of 3D printable CHEAP prosthetic hand for people who lost some of their fingers. The hand is actuated by the motion of the wrist.

People who lost their hand can not use this wonderful project and we aim at adapting this project to their benefit. Using cheap hardware like artificial tendons (SMA), raspberry board and EMG devices, we are looking to be able to provide a hand costing only few hundreds US$

In this video we show the preliminary result of a possible way to control the hand to generate 3 basic motions: open, close, and point. As the implementation of the actuation system using SMA artificial tendons is not completed, we use a dynamic simulation of the roboHand using V-REP robotic framework

We use a voice recognition algorithm to send commands to the virtual hand. To be able to define when a voice command is to be executed, we use a Electromyogram (EMG) device that detects the muscular activity (here the facial muscular activity using an Emotiv device).

The working sequence to generate a predefine position on the hand is the following:
_ clench in order to let the system knows that the operator is going to tell a voice command
_ within the few following seconds (time out), speak the command being "open", "close",or "point".
_clench again to validate the last spoken command.

A sound feedback is given to the user in order to make him aware of the status of his actions:
_1 beep: system is listening
_2 beeps: validating the spoken command
_3 beeps: time out